so that I can see into the depths and reflect the blue sky once more.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, priest, palentologist, and prophet of evolutionary view of God and the uiverse, wrote,”Voir ou périr.” See or perish.

As I read and write today without glasses for the first time in my life, this is striking. After six eye procedures, beginning on Valentine’s Day, 2018, I finally can SEE without glasses for the first time since I can remember.

I started wearing glasses at age 5 after reporting to my mother, “Look at the bunny.” It was actually a horse in a field across the way. I learned to know that I was techinically “legally blind” since, unaided, I could not read a single letter on the eye chart. When I lost my ability to read close up in my 50’s, my dependence on glasses became complete. Remember that woman you saw swimming with her glasses on? That would have been me.

I declared this year following the end of my career in pastoral ministry the year of “Morphing into Jubilación [the Spanish word for retirement].” Maybe SEEKING NEW VISION would have been more apropos.

Here’s the story: To correct cataracts I had lens implants in February, designed to give me 20/20 vision. The correction was not complete. The lens capsules became cloudy and I in July I had two capsulotomies,the surgeon played painless red laser tag to zap away the cloudy cells. Painless. But still not 20/20. Then Friday I had Lasix surgery on both eyes for the last bit of correction. Now my right eye sees far and my left eye sees near. My brain is putting that together. Pretty well. I went to church “glasses free.”

So when I came to this line today in the Cosmic Campfire Bookclub read, I got it:

“In the end, it’s all about seeing,”

I feel pretty hip (oops, that’s old slang) having joined a “cosmic” bookclub of 350+ folks via Facebook. The newly released anthology of spiritual memoirs, “how I found GOD in everyone and everywhere” (Andrew M. Davis and Philip Clayton,eds.) is the text for the COSMIC CAMPFIRE BOOKCLUB. It takes the lens of spiritual journeys of eleven clergy, scholars, scientists, philiosphers, healers to invite us club members to take a new look at our own ways of seeing and being.

Here’s what Cynthia said about vision:

…you begin to see in a dynamic, intercirculating, interabiding, cosmotheandric way that preserves both particularity and unity…

…as we open our mystical eye-of-the-heart and see, what we see is a Christianity which has essentially been waiting in the wings for two millenia for the time to arrive when it can finally become consistent in its own hightest cosmotheandric calling: ‘As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us…I in them and you in me, that they may be comletely one.” (John 17:21-23) (pp 111-112)

I am thankful that editor, Andrew M. Davis, says it more simply in the introduction:

In sharing these journeys with readers, we hope to offer a vision of spiritual return and reenchantment. Relating one’s own personal journey to that of others can offer new insight, inspiritual and depth to one’s life and to one’s world…The best journeys, after all, are those that are shared. (xv)

I don’t follow the rules. Well, in some things. I am not like my Beloved who considers even public safety rules, like “NO SKATING. THIN ICE” as negotiable and dependent on individual interpretation. Those rules I follow. But when it comes to spiritual disciplines, no matter how “traditional,” I am prone to experimenting — doing my own thing.

Hence, Lent 2015, I cobbled together LECTIO/MANDALA.

A combination of contemplating texts, or life, or dreams — drawing a mandala/circular design — and writing a haiku prayer — this evolving practice was inspired by the tiny journals I found for $1.99 a piece at “The Amish Grocery” (Forks County Line Store) in Middlebury, IN. Continue reading →

This Wisdom was found on FB….and reminded me of the wisdom of my choir director, Frank Kuykendall.

I ponder Sabbath. For myself, I need a “breather” from the news. When I remember to take 24 hours off of the news cycle, I can return with some perspective. I have a wider gaze at the world. The wren re-appears, singing her heart out, on the puppy pen fence, and that other bird, so large, goes shooting up into the branches of the slowly dying elm. What WAS that?

I ponder the fact that we have different Holy Days. Perhaps Muslims can take their breather on Friday, Jews on Saturday, Christians on Sunday, and then the week of the work of love and resistance can resume.

Stagger breathing requires trust. You must have faith that the people around you will carry on the work without you. In turn, you have to complete the circle by stepping up when others need time off. You have to be aware of the people around you. ~Marlene Metz Hartzler

In days like these, when I feel breathless, or kicked in the gut gasping, I also remember this song: “THIS IS THE AIR I BREATHE” BY MICHAEL W SMITH

I have been meeting with a group called LISTENING TOGETHER for about two years now. We gather at 7 pm on Monday evenings at Pathways Retreat, Goshen, IN. All are welcome. It is an evolving group, and “seeking Wisdom” would be a good way to state our hopes, I believe. We sit, we chant together, we practice centering prayer, and we explore where Wisdom leads. We began by studying the book “The Wisdom Jesus” by my teacher, Cynthia Bourgeault.

Now, in this Easter Season, the group is turning to sharing our SACRED STORIES. And I realized this morning that I was returning to a practice I learned in a college class in 1974. The class was entitled STORYTELLING AND LISTENING. Continue reading →

At Pathways this morning, this image cut me to the quick. Jesus is saying his goodbyes and caring for his loved ones, as those with presence in dying universally do. The mother and son are held in the embrace of Belovedness.

“For our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

Linda Brown died on Sunday in Topeka, Kansas. She was 76 years old. When Linda was a third grader her father tried to enroll her in an all white school just blocks from her house in Topeka. Her application to attend the school was denied, Continue reading →

This is the first Holy Week for which I have not “been in charge” (HAH!) for nearly thirty years. As a ministering person, this is a most intense week of responsibility. But here I find myself with response-ability afresh. What does this week of remembrance, the heart of Christian Wisdom, offer?

A friend posted the suggestion to practice SURRENDER this week. At first glance, surrender calls up the image of playing war with my brothers and needing to come our of hiding, waiving a white flag, and being taken prisoner. Being a loser. Dying.

Jesus reframes surrender in this Holy Week as he gives himself in full abandonment to love humanity to the core. Even the rotten core. Continue reading →

I am so grateful that Richard Rohr, OFM, is always ahead of me in the wild-erness of Life in G-D. From cassette tapes in the 80’s, to CD’s to youtube, he has had the generosity and passion for sowing the seeds of Wisdom far and wide.

A member of the Monday night group, Listening @ Pathways, sent a link to this teaching on contemplative prayer. It is not “new.” It is a classic example of Perenniel Wisdom. How do we become transformed people in service of a transforming world? Continue reading →

Dayenu. Yes. That would have been enough. But I believe we also talked. And I am not done listening.

Sounding out Wisdom is the inner work of gathering the voices that act with god-like quality in our lives at a round table with Wisdom/Christ as the host.

And then listening. All these voices are honored. They each have their say. They each bring a piece of wisdom. But no one voice is G-D. And they need to come to an ever evolving “understanding.”

I remember learning this discipline from Sufi teacher Neil Douglas Klotz in his book about the ninety nine names of Allah. When I was working on a meditation on the ways we name God, the number ninety-nine came to mind. And, with the help of Google, I found the ancient Islamic practice of praying the names of God. Continue reading →